Bad Girls Good Women

They heard Betty’s footsteps going away down the stairs.

Julia had stopped shivering. To Jessie and Felix she said almost triumphantly, ‘I told you, didn’t I? You’re my family now. You and Mattie.’

Mattie was at the front door when Betty passed her. She caught a glimpse of her face and automatically put her hand out, but Betty never wavered. Mattie watched her go, away under the plane trees with her brown hat held upright. She seemed to carry the smell of Fairmile Road with her, Air-Wick and polish and ironing.

Betty sat quite still, all the way back on the train to the local station. She crossed the High Street, quite blind, although she nodded to the people who greeted her. Everything inside her was focused on her longing to reach home. Outside the front door she groped for her key, not even noticing that the panels of the door were coated with street dust. But when the door swung open there was none of the relief of sanctuary. She saw Vernon’s mackintosh hanging from its pegs on the hallstand, and his black briefcase on the floor beside it.

Of course, it was past the time for Vernon to be at home. It was strange, she realised now, that she hadn’t thought about him all the way back.

He appeared in the living room doorway, at first only a dark shadow seen out of the corner of her eye, and then she looked full at him. He was wearing his navy-blue office suit, shiny at the cuffs and turn-ups.

‘Betty? Where have you been?’

She always had his tea on the table by half past five, always. Her eyes met his.

‘I went up to Town. To look for Julia.’

His stiff face, frowning, measuring her.

‘And did you find her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

She told him, awkwardly, stumbling over the words while he frowned. ‘She won’t come back to us, Vernon. She says she won’t come home.’ She wanted to go to him and have him put his arms around her, as that black boy had done with Julia, but neither of them moved. That wasn’t part of what happened between them.

Vernon said at last, ‘Well. If she won’t, she won’t.’ He turned back into the sitting room.

Betty’s hand reached out to the pretty, orange-skirted lady who covered the telephone. Her fingers caressed the layers of net skirt, searching for comfort.

‘I’ll put the tea on,’ she whispered.

It was an evening like any of the others, except Julia’s room upstairs was empty. There was not even the expectation of her key in the lock. Vernon listened to the play on the Home Service and Betty sat in the armchair opposite him with her knitting coiled in her lap.

At ten o’clock exactly she asked him, ‘Shall I make the cocoa?’

He nodded, not even looking at her over his reading glasses. She was heating the milk, in the special pan she always used, when he came in behind her. His presence seemed incongruous in the tidy kitchen. Betty looked down into the still, white circle of milk.

‘I told her,’ she said roughly. ‘I told her about the adoption.’

He almost bumped against her, but then he stepped back again.

‘I wish you hadn’t. She’s too young yet.’

‘Vernon, she’s grown up. She’s grown up, in that place.’

‘What did she say? How did she take it?’

The milk rose swiftly, and Betty lifted it off the heat.

‘I think she laughed. She said … she said it set her free.’

She couldn’t understand that. Perhaps Vernon would understand it. But all he said, after a long pause, and so quietly that she could hardly hear him, was ‘Perhaps it’s for the best. In the end.’

Betty carried the cups back into the living room and they drank their cocoa in silence. When her cup was empty she said, ‘I’ll go on up.’

Vernon usually followed her, after locking the doors and winding the clock on the mantelpiece. But tonight he sat for a long time in his armchair in the quiet house, staring ahead of him at the lavender and yellow flowers that ran in garlands down the wallpaper.

Betty lay under the eiderdown upstairs with the tears wet and stinging on her cheeks.

It was Jessie who told Mattie what had happened. Julia listened with her head bent, picking at the fringe of the shawl. At the end she broke in, saying fiercely, ‘I’m sorry about what my … about what she said to you and Felix. That’s the way she is. Anyone who doesn’t live like she does is condemned. She did it to Mattie …’

Jessie said gently, ‘There’s no need to be sorry, my duck. And she is your mother. She raised you all those years, whoever had the birth of you.’

Mattie didn’t say much. She was shocked, but a part of her wasn’t even surprised. She put her arms round Julia’s shoulders and hugged her, and then she grinned lopsidedly at Jessie and Felix.

‘Here we are, the two of us. What do you think?’

‘I don’t think anything,’ Jessie declared. ‘I know you belong here, that’s all. You can stay as long as you feel like it. Felix?’

He had gone back to his place by the window, looking down on the square. ‘Of course they can stay,’ he answered.

They had given Julia a glass of vodka and orange and she drank it in a gulp, and then looked round at the three of them.

‘What shall we do?’ she demanded.

‘I’ve just told you,’ Jessie said. ‘Stay here with us.’

Julia’s face softened. ‘Thank you for that. But I meant now, tonight.’ There was a pressure on her chest, tightening, like something threatening to burst out of her. And she felt a weird, wild gaiety. When the others stared at her she laughed, a little too loudly.

‘I want to go out somewhere. Have some fun.’

Jessie hesitated, and then she nodded. She reached down beside her chair for her huge, cracked leather handbag and then peered inside it. From one of the powdery recesses she produced a five-pound note and waved it at Felix.

‘She’s right. No point moping here. Take them both out and buy them dinner. Go on with you.’

Felix took charge. ‘Get dressed, both of you. Something decent. We’ll go to Leoni’s.’

‘Good boy,’ Jessie said approvingly.

When they were ready, they tried to persuade Jessie to come with them.

‘We need you,’ Mattie said, ‘if we’re going to have a posh dinner. Julia and me won’t know which knife to use.’

‘Felix will tell you. He’s good at all that.’

Jessie seemed more firmly lodged in her chair than ever. She was afraid of the long flight of stairs outside her door, and the streets beyond them, but she tried not to let them see it.